Belgium – You’re next!

To launch – or not to launch. Futile question, really. As fairly simple people (apart from an exception or two whom I am NOT going to mention now) we’re not really into the pondering of deep questions. If we can launch we will. Belgium was on our list of immensely cuddleable launchable countries for a while and has now made it to top position.

I can just hear all you Italians, Austrians and French crying out „Why them? Why not us?“ Well, there IS Belgium’s great beer and chocolate – which according to some very smart sources, which we all agree with over here but I can’t disclose, women actually need. Additionally, we also happen to have a great start lineup for you gals and guys over there. There’s VIJFtv and VT4 for the Flemish and La Une and La Deux for the French-speaking part. Add to that an ecletic mix of international news and entertainment channels for global minds, the homesick, and foreign language crammers – Al Jazeera English, Deutsche Welle, France 24 English, Luxe TV, SF info, Sumo TV, The Poker Channel, and TVP Polonia – and you’ve got Smörebröd a nice mix of online info-tainment to get you hooked going. Download now!

Zattoo – We care. For Belgians and other sorts of people.

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This entry was posted on September 26, 2007 at 10:08 am and is filed under Announcements, Beer, Belgium. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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102 Responses to “Belgium – You’re next!”

Thanks You Very Much for the Belgian Line up 😉
But One Error are in the Picture , You have placed VTV4, the international channel from the Vietnam and not VT4, the Flemish channel 😉
And i repeat , Thanks You ! 😀

As it happened, I was attending a conference in Belgium yesterday, so I could try this on the conference WLAN and impress my neighbor (after the conference was over, of course :-). Quality was absolutely perfect.

I just discovered and tried zattoo in Belgium today, and then saw it was launched very recently. That’s luck, I had no time to wait 🙂

I had no sound for la premiere, and a lot of frame skipped for la deux.

Do you have to get an agreement with each channel you stream? French channels are generally available here in Belgium, and it’s a pitty to not have them in your line-up. Channels like TF1? France2, France3, or TV5 Europe.

@Lionel: ok, I will have to console myself with Swiss chocolate in the meantime … 😉

@Lionel and rb: yes, we have to get the rights for the channels for each single country. But we’re working on getting you more channels all the time, so the current Belgian lineup is not the final one. Cheers from Zurich!

Yeah, great for Belgium.
But no seriously, there is a bunch of us waiting for you to Launch Zattoo in Austria. Give us the good news soon, please – I’m already becoming a maniac from checking your blog 10 times a day!

Ok. If you need culinary reasons for launching Zattoo in France, shall I remind you that we are the world’s main wine exporter, that there are about 400 different types of cheeses made in France and that French cuisine is renowned the world round… Seriously, those are not valid arguments 😉 Anyway, our chefs, cooks and butlers are waiting for Zattoo to show up in Proust’s nation… By the way, on Oct 1, 1977, French TV switched from black and white to colours; I had personally entertained the belief that you’d set the anniversary date for launch. I was mistaken… 🙂

@ all Austrians: how can we resist? Fabulous Austrian wines, Mozart Kugeln, letting us win the EURO 08, and you even have beer … You’ve been moved to the top of the launch list.

But then there’s France, with all its cheeses, wines and wonderful cooking (SERIOUSLY valid arguments, Nicolas) – aaaahhh, what do we do? You’ve been moved to the top as well.

Jokes aside, you both are at the top of our launch list anyway, because we’re close to getting a good starting lineup together for both countries. Which is all that counts, right? (Apart from beer and chocolate …)

i work for a belgian television facilities company (videohouse), and i must say i’m impressed by this little media player. The quality is great, it doesn’t use a lot of bandwidth, and it’s really easy to use. Good job and i’m waiting for more (belgian) channels to come…

Hey, I am alos a belgian living in switzerland, so I think I downloaded the swiss version (or is there only one?). Anyways, I dont have any belgian channels in my list…do I need to download a new version or is it just not up yet?
Thankx

@vwsteven: as we receive the rights to carry channels by country and not internationally, you will see another lineup in Switzerland than in Belgium. Which means that when you download the player in Switzerland you will see the Swiss lineup. If you download it in Belgium, you’ll see the Belgian one. But we continue to work on getting more channels for every country lineup, so stay with us!

I’ve read that we can only see channels from our country…why ?
I am desesperatly trying to find a way to view ” LA SEXTA” by internet.
Is there any chance that someday Zatoo will allow users to see all the channels offered on Zatoo without restricting them because they are in an other country ?

Hey,
please keep on working for new channels in Germany!
I´m sick of MTV right now 🙂
Could you get in Touch With SevenMedia Group?
Pro7 & Kabel 1 would be sooooooo great!
Thanks.
PS: I´m from Bavaria,Munich. Home of the 6 best beers and the Oktoberfest! 😉

Please add French (e.g. TF1, France 2,3,4,5 and M6) and British Channels (BBC-Channels) into the german list. Furthermore I miss american und canadian channel. Now, I can watch ABC NEWS NOW but it would be great to receive CBC NEWSWORLD (Canadian Newschannel).
I’d pay for this service, of course. 😀

@Madsen: we agree totally with you, and one of us is working on a solution for this.
@all others with channel requests: It’s good to know which channels you’re interested in. We certainly continue to burn lots of shoe and phone rubber getting you more. Just take a look at the happy Swiss: first they had four channels, now they’ve got 56.

I am a Swiss living in Belgium and am a big fan of Zattoo because it gives expats like me the possibility to keep in touch with the home land. For now you offer SF info in Belgium and I understand that the list of channel is bound to contracts with the tv stations. I just wonder why it is not possible to offer all available channels to all regions instead of make a selection for each country. Since the channels gave their permission to show their programs through Zattoo I guess it would be easier, if the users can make her/his own list of favourites and chose from the whole list? Like that I could chose for example all the Swiss channels in order to get as much information from home as possible. Please don’t get me wrong, I find your project great, but maybe this could be a way to make it even better and user focussed.

Thanks for your feedback and for bringing Zattoo to Belgium and good luck for your future projects.

I live in Switzerland and I would like to see the Belgian channel (la Une, la Deux…). The problem is that when I load the application it looks like I have some Swiss, French channels… but not the Belgian one’s… would it possible to add La Une and La Deux to the list ???

I am a Swiss living in Belgium and am a big fan of Zattoo because it gives expats like me the possibility to keep in touch with the home land. For now you offer SF info in Belgium and I understand that the list of channel is bound to contracts with the tv stations. I just wonder why it is not possible to offer all available channels to all regions instead of make a selection for each country. Since the channels gave their permission to show their programs through Zattoo I guess it would be easier, if the users can make her/his own list of favourites and chose from the whole list? Like that I could chose for example all the Swiss channels in order to get as much information from home as possible. Please don’t get me wrong, I find your project great, but maybe this could be a way to make it even better and user focussed.

Thanks for your feedback and for bringing Zattoo to Belgium and good luck for your future projects.

@ruscalto: I had to ask my buddy Francesco, former blogger and king of content, about this. So here’s why it’s not possible to offer a channel in several different countries all at once: the fact is that channels themselves do not have the right to show content outside of their own country. They buy the content from the content providers (all the big studios etc.), but they only buy the permission to show it in their specific language and on their territory. So a German TV channel will buy the rights for “Mission Impossible”, say, but only get the rights to show it in German and in Germany.

So while broadcasting rights are still so territorial we’ll just have to continue to fine-tune our negotiation skills to serve the broader public (you) …

I really can not wait to get some Flemisch ( Belgium ) Channels on Zattoo.

Because with my Sat its impossible to get them, need a special card to receive them. The thing is that I’m even not so far away from Belgium, I’m just across the boarder in Germany, but here they don’t give channels from Belgium. ;(

We in Belgium give channels for different countries even germany, but if you guys giving some Belgium channels here then I will use Zattoo more then before. Because then it’s getting more interesting for me to watch on Zattoo

why cant you provide all free channels that exist both on internet and on satellite that you have in your channel list to all countries? For example TVE, Canal24 horas, Eurosport, MTV, RTL and RAI channels all are free on satellite and I dont believe they only have rights in their own country because they are free channels and lots of countries can already watch those channels. Is it a server/cost issue or some other strange international laws on internet you obey different than satellite laws? Greetings from nonZattoo land Sweden 😦 and congrats Belgium 🙂

La une / la deux is allrite , Al jazeera is really nice cause u can’t get it with classic tv . France 24 english (but why not french lol? ) is good as well .
I just wonder , what to expect from the future ? New added channels possibly ?

Hello there, im a lebanese person living in KSA (Saudi Arabia) and im looking forward to use zattoo today before tomo.. i know im asking for too much i know that europe still not covered full.. but it will be great favour for me to list SAudi arabia on ur list as soon as possible..
thanks alot and realy appreciate ur response

In a few weeks the lowpriced subnotebook “Asus Eee Pc” will be available. It runs Xandros, which is based on Debian. With 900 Mhz (clocked down to 600/700) and 256-1024 MB Ram (depends on model) it is really on the lowest level for running Zattoo. Could You check the compatibility or talk to Asus for an implementation?

@herrmutt and Lionel: the good news is that it’s not you. We are in fact experiencing connection problems because the signal encoding has been changed. Our technician is flying over there this week, and La Une and La Deux should be up and running again by mid next week.

Ok everything seems ok now ! Thanks !
Just one more request :
Will it be possible to add the arte channel ?
(I know for a fact that belgian shows are now programmed on arte + i have to say that a cultural channel will be much appreciated and i would definately tell all my friends and relatives about zattoo if that channel was available for belgian users ! 😉 )

@Attila: I don’t think so. VT4/VIJFtv usually makes agreements with content creators to broadcast their shows in Flanders. In other words: they’re not allowed to broadcast outside Flanders, unless they were to filter out all programs for which they don’t have sufficient rights. But then you’d only be able to watch home shopping programs and phone-in quizzes, so that wouldn’t even be worth it.

Can I download from here as well, because I read somewhere you restrict the service to Switzerland, Denmark, Spain, Germany, Norway, United Kingdom and Belgium? (Is this IP based via GeoIP or similar?)